The By-Pass Control (29 page)

She glared at me then, her eyes partially bloodshot and filled with hate. “That one knew too much. But he talked. Vito Salvi made sure he talked.” She stopped and frowned. “But he may have been lying. He said there was a report on me in his personal file. Oh, there was one, but simply a routine check.”

“He had another,” I said. “It turned up.”

“It doesn’t really matter now.”

I went to ask her something else but she shook her head. Quickly, her eyes roved through the room, caught sight of the figure in the chair and didn’t have to be given any explanations.

“No, Tiger, talk is needless. I don’t want to be distracted by anything from doing ... this.” The gun made a small up and down motion, never leaving a vital area of my body.

Camille read my mind and said, “There’s a lamp on the table beside you. Light it. Only your hand moves and very, very slowly.”

So I lit the scene for my own death. Very, very slowly.

“Now your gun, Tiger. Just pick it out with your fingers and drop it. It means a few seconds more you can live and think.”

I felt for the gun, half turning, then realized that it was no use at all. The hole in my side from Hoppes’ .22 Magnum had numbed half my body and any motion at all sent a violent shiver of blinding pain right into my brain. I let the gun hit the floor and stay there.

“Now empty your pockets. Everything. Turn them inside out so I can see them. I’ve heard of the devices you have used, Tiger. They are methods we use ourselves and I don’t want any used against me.”

One by one I turned my pockets out and dumped their contents on the table top. She was going to be disappointed. A wallet, spare clips, change, a ring of picklocks, and a gimmick that was totally useless now, the Bezex inhaler that had been designed for Niger Hoppes.

Her eyes went up in mock astonishment.

I said, “Why delay, Camille?”

She smiled again, her watery eyes even more like a spider’s than ever behind the cold that had her in its grip. “I told you once. I enjoy studying people. I’m interested in their reactions. The dossier the committee has on you is so thick, the record of your actions so impressive that I want to see what you are like when you know you are the one dying.”

“I’ve faced it before.”

“Ah, but this time
you can be sure!”
she rasped at me. “Move back, one step at a time. Stay in the middle of the room.”

I did as she told me to. If I went near anything I could throw she wouldn’t wait. I’d die on the spot, and as she said, each moment was one for living and thinking.

She reached the table where I had been, the gun telling me to stop where I was. From there she had a clear view of the body of Louis Agrounsky, confirming all she thought. She could see the red dots of the control unit and knew it was operative. Later her own technicians could examine it and make use of its deadly potential.

“Why didn’t you move in on him faster, Camille?”

She coughed quietly and blinked, then said candidly, “Simply because we didn’t know the secret of the by-pass control. He had it well hidden. Perhaps even booby trapped. We needed the whole unit. We had hoped to get Agrounsky too, but I doubt if he’ll be missed now. Our engineers will know what to do, I assure you.”

“We’ll all be dead. You know that, don’t you?”

She shook her head, still smiling. “Only you for now. The rest we will control nicely. They will learn how to serve the state and there will be very little protest. After all, we’ve had a great deal of experience with what you people like to term ‘captive nations.’ This country will be no different.”

Camille held the gun in her left hand, the other idly toying with the things I had dumped on the table. I had to force myself to keep my eyes steady where they were, just looking at her and not about to plead or beg. She would have liked that. It would have made what she was planning even more enjoyable. She would have gloried in the spider role even more than ever.

She frowned, eyes squinting, wrinkling her nose against a sneeze, and fought it back. In a way it was even funny. “I’ve suffered because of you, Tiger, but it helped me weave a stronger web than ever.”

“Tough.”

“You thought it couldn’t be done. I was right in the first place ... you are a fly. A typical fly lured into a web and dying at the greatest moment of pleasure, isn’t that so?” “Is it?”

She frowned again and breathed in hard, the air making a small whistling sound in her nostrils and her eyes showed the annoyance she felt. Only for a second did she look away, then picked up the inhaler and unscrewed the cap. She held it with a derisive gesture and said, “Thank you, fly ... before you die, my thanks.”

And she breathed in to clear her head, one side first, then moved to the other and her hand stopped midway and for one long second her eyes seemed to clear and widen as the deadly cyanide gas she had activated by the simple motion of removing the cap flooded her lungs, and she knew she had lost it because she pulled the trigger of the automatic, only by then it was pointed at the floor and she went down to join the one outside in the great lonely cave of death.

She was dead when I reached her and she never heard me say, “I told you I was the mud-dauber type, spider.”